The BSD Certification Group

The BSD Certification Group Inc. is a non-profit organization committed to creating and maintaining a global certification standard for system administration on BSD based operating systems.

Get Certified!

Operating systems built on the Berkeley Software Distribution software releases (from the University of California Berkeley) have been around since the mid-1970s. Originally used on expensive hardware the software proved flexible and robust enough to port to smaller and smaller systems. Universities and research organizations around the world were already using the software when the first Intel 386 port appeared in March, 1992.

Today, thousands of companies use BSD based systems and software. BSD systems run some of the busiest sites on the Internet, including Yahoo, New York Internet, Pair Networks, and others. BSD systems have proven remarkably stable, some recording 'uptimes' (time since last reboot) in years, rather than weeks or months. Use of this freely available software has skyrocketed since its beginning and has continued to grow steadily.

Companies large and small want to protect their investment in BSD systems by employing system administrators, users, programmers, network specialists and others with demonstrated proficiency in using and understanding these systems. BSD Certification provides these companies with a clear path to hiring qualified individuals.

What they are saying

Building a certification that will cement knowledge, standards and best practice will take time but I have no doubt it will eventually be considered the gold standard. End Users, Administrators, CIO's and other IT decision makers should be on the lookout for this new and soon to be unrivaled IT certification.

Nothing beats having trained staff for what OS is used, however. The upcoming BSD certification initiative is an excellent step in this direction. Having technicians and administrators that have completed BSD-specific training should greatly help companies feel better about using BSD, just as having Cisco, Novell, or Microsoft trained staff helped with using those products.